18733 At Penikese 



be trained in right methods, and so carry back into 

 their own schools sound ideas on the teaching of 

 science. Moreover, each institution reached would 

 become in time a center of help to others. 



None of us will ever forget his first sight of Agassiz First 

 as we arrived on a little steamer from New Bedford si s ht i 

 in the early morning, and he met us at the land- Agasnz 

 ing, his face beaming with pleasure. For this experi- 

 ment might prove to be his crowning work as a 

 teacher. His tall, robust figure, his broad shoulders 

 bending a little under the weight of years, his large, 

 round face lit up by kindly, dark-brown eyes, his 

 cheery smile, the enthusiastic tones of his voice, 

 his rolling gait all these entered into our abiding 

 impression of the great naturalist. 



The dormitory not being yet finished, the whole 

 group was first assigned to temporary quarters in 

 the laboratory, across the middle of which a partition 

 of robes and blankets had been thrown to separate 

 the sexes. Agassiz then set every one to work 

 without delay, saying that we should examine the 

 rocks round about and be ready to tell him what we 

 had seen. Thereupon two of us, Dr. W. O. Crosby 

 (of the Institute of Technology) and myself, were 

 suddenly beset with questions, for we alone knew 

 something of Mineralogy. "Is this hornblende?" 

 "Is this epidote?" "How do you tell them apart?" 

 "How do you" know granite from gneiss, feldspar 

 from quartz?" But when Agassiz himself tested ideas, 

 us, he neither asked nor answered questions of this not 

 kind; and as for names, it slowly dawned on all 

 that a name was of little consequence until backed 

 by real knowledge. 



L 109 n 



